Some of you might already be familiar with Zobeck because you’ve picked up a copy of the expanded Zobeck Gazetteer. Or maybe you’ve been playing within the Midgard campaign setting for awhile. Or both! For those not in the know: Zobeck is an exotic and powerful trade city at the crossroads of the Midgard campaign setting. Stern griffon riders keep watch atop its towers, kobolds scuttle in the shadows, and long-forgotten sorcerous clockwork experiments stir to life in bricked-up cellars. (Oooh…lurking clockwork experiments….)

Within the setting, kobolds crown their kings and queens with tin crowns. These crowns are coveted—surely you wouldn’t mind having one yourself? And, you know, we have just the way to gain one! Here’s how: Kobold Quarterly is starting a new contest. To seize the tin crown, you need to design a monster, item, encounter, spells, feats, character theme, traps, hazards, powers—things that would work well with the Zobeck source material and enhance the setting for those who play within it. Each entry will be evaluated by a panel of industry professionals and by the fans. As ever, fame and prizes play a part in this again. Learn more after the jump.

So, what do you need to do? First, read all the stuff below, then start designing!

Here’s how it works: To enter the contest, your submission MUST…

• Be sent to the Seize the Tin Crown Contest at miranda(at)koboldquarterly(dot)com no later than March 9, 2012, by noon PST. (That’s about three weeks from now!)
• Be submitted as a doc, docx, or rtf attachment.
• Read Seize the Tin Crown Submission [insert entry name] in the email’s subject line. Your full name and contact information should be in the body of the email (not in your attachment).
• Be designed for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game/3rd Edition D&D, 4th Edition D&D, or the AGE system.
• Be 800 words or less, follow the format used for the relevant crunchy stuff in each system, and have the appropriate flavor text and lore to flesh out your creation.

Be stunningly creative! That crown won’t just jump into your hands, you know!

Judging

All submissions that meet the criteria will be entered in the contest and be judged by us, the Kobolds, and our guest judges on originality, effective writing and design, and “fun.” The 10 best submissions will be published here on koboldquarterly.com and be voted on by the public. Of those 10 submissions, the one with the winning votes will officially seize the Kobold Quarterly Tin Crown for 2012.

So who’s judging? As ever, we have a trio of extremely talented and terrific judges: Ben McFarland, Adam Roy, and Sigfried Trent. Take a look at their bios below.

Ben McFarland once beat Zeb Cook in a Greyhawk Trivia Contest.  Ben began freelancing with Open Design in 2008, tackling projects that run the gamut from 3.5 to 4E to Pathfinder and all points in between, and he hasn’t looked back. He lived on a desert island for two years while serving as an officer in the US Air Force. He likes to brew his own beer, make his own Chinese food, and fence saber, although he does none of these as much as he would like anymore. His premises are guarded by a man with a shotgun three nights a week—you guess the nights.

Adam Roy is the alter ego of Mighty Mongo, half-orc barbarian blogger and founder of the Humanoid Anti-Defamation League (‘Tuskers Unite!’). He is a freelance writer and editor for Open Design (Kobold Minion #13), Game Master-at-large-without-portfolio, as well as a full-time father, husband, and wireless guru in his offline life.  He manages all this by avoiding sleep altogether. Adam is the co-author (along with Christina Stiles) of Open Design’s upcoming Player’s Guides to Midgard

Birthed in the savage north beneath cold open skies, Sigfried Trent spent his youth learning the harsh discipline of rules lawyering and tale spinning in countless games of D&D. When no dungeon could stand against him, he traveled south to the lands of hill and rain. There while dueling with strangely colored rectangles, he crossed paths with the famed bard Wolfgang. After battling to a draw, they joined forces to found a great empire along with many other stalwart allies. Best known for the Netbook of Feats and the Advanced Feats series from Open Design, Sigfried also works behind the scenes of Open Design along with his wife Anne. Together they edit, design, market, do layout work, and otherwise kick butt for goodness.

Prizes for the One Who Seizes the Tin Crown

The winning submission will have an illustration commissioned and be published in an upcoming issue of Kobold Quarterly. In addition, its designer will receive a free print and PDF copy of his or her choice of the winning submission. (For the GM of the one who seizes this crown: Perhaps you could have some fun awarding the crown to the person’s character in your game? For players with a GM who seizes this crown: maybe show up to the next game night after the winner is announced with a crown for your beloved GM? Just a thought….)

Additional Rules

1. The contest is open to all.
2. One entry per person. The entry must be your own work, which has not been published previously, is not being considered for publication by any other publisher, and is original and does not infringe upon any copyrighted material.
3. All entries become property of Open Design.
4. By entering this contest, you authorize the use of your name and likeness without additional compensation for promotion and advertising purposes in all media.
5. This contest is subject to federal, state, and local laws where applicable.
6. Open Design reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this contest at any time without prior notice.
7. All decisions of Open Design and the contest judges are final.

So, now you have all the relevant information to enter this contest. What’re you waiting for? The kobolds eagerly await your submissions!